The Week In Review: Sept. 23

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus For some time, Apple’s iPhones have incorporated a separate RF switch and diversity switch from Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI). The switches are based on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) variant called silicon-on-sapphire (SOS). Murata takes Peregrine’s RF switches and integrates them into a module. Doug Freedman, an analyst with RBC Capital, said Apple is no longer using PSMI�... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 3

By Mark LaPedus - 03 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus The cellular chip supplier landscape is littered with corpses. So will 4G lead to the destruction of Qualcomm and Intel? That’s highly unlikely, according to a blog from Strategy Analytics. “With the recent announcement of a multimode LTE chipset from Intel, it seems likely that Qualcomm and Intel will maintain their status as the top two cellular radio chipset suppliers in... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 26

By Mark LaPedus - 26 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus The evolving relationship between humans and machines is the key theme of Gartner’s most "hyped” technologies in 2013. Gartner has chosen to feature the relationship between humans and machines due to the increased hype around smart machines, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things. Gartner also released its updated chart of hyped technologies. SunEdison, formerly... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 19

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Applied Materials named Gary Dickerson, who has been serving as president of the company, as CEO. Mike Splinter, who held the reins since 2003, was elevated to executive chairman of the board. Dickerson served as the CEO of Varian, which Applied acquired in 2011, as well as the president and COO of KLA-Tencor. Applied Materials also announced its Q3 results. The company rep... » read more

ATE Market Changes With The Times

By Jeff Chappell - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Jeff Chappell A declining PC market in recent years coupled with the continuing growth of mobile phones and tablets has meant changes throughout the semiconductor supply chain, and automated test equipment is no exception. For example, a decade ago memory test—namely DRAM—was a large market compared with that of nascent system-on-a-chip (SoC) testing. In fact, at the time some test e... » read more

China Foundries Seek Niches

By Mark LaPedus - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus For decades, China has launched several initiatives to modernize its semiconductor industry with hopes of becoming the next IC powerhouse in Asia. In 2001, for example, China unveiled its so-called "Tenth Five-Year Plan," which called for the nation to build 25 new fabs from 2001 to 2005. At the time, the Chinese government hoped to start and fund a new crop of domestic fou... » read more

System-Level Security Issues

By Ed Sperling - 25 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

The more things that are put onto a single SoC, the greater the possibility that the entire system can be hacked. Centralization is good from the standpoint of speed, cost and power, but it’s not always good from the standpoint of security. This may sound contrary to the experience of corporate IT departments, but there’s a reason behind this. In the case of data centers, the advent of t... » read more

Foundry Models In Transition

By Jeff Chappell - 18 Apr, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Jeff Chappell There may have been a time when AMD founder Jerry Sanders famous quote: "real men (i.e., real companies) have their own fabs” rang true, but in today's business climate it seems quaint at best. Fabless or fab-lite business models are more popular than ever today, while some IDMs have turned back the clock, so to speak, looking to improve capacity utilization and revenues ... » read more

Getting Ready For High-Mobility FinFETs

By Mark LaPedus - 21 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus The IC industry entered the finFET era in 2011, when Intel leapfrogged the competition and rolled out the newfangled transistor technology at the 22nm node. Intel hopes to ramp up its second-generation finFET devices at 14nm by year’s end, with plans to debut its 11nm technology by 2015. Hoping to close the gap with Intel, silicon foundries are accelerating their efforts t... » read more

What Will Replace Dual Damascene?

By Mark LaPedus - 24 Jan, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus In the mid-1990s, IBM announced the world’s first devices using a copper dual damascene process. At the time, the dual damascene manufacturing process was hailed as a major breakthrough. The new copper process enabled IC makers to scale the tiny interconnects in a device, as the previous material, aluminum, faced some major limitations. Dual damascene remains the workhorse... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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